Modi hails farmers for making biscuits from farm produce

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday appreciated the farmers of Uttarakhand's Bageshwar district for making biscuits from their farm produce.

"In Bageshwar, the main crops are mandwa, chaulai, corn or barley. This being a hilly area, the farmers did not get a fair price for their produce.

"But the farmers in Kapkot village decided to come out of this situation. They adopted a value addition process and turned a loss-incurring equation into a profit-earning one," the Prime Minister said in his monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat".

Modi said he learned about the success story of these farmers from "Good News India" programme on Doordarshan.

He said their income doubled with the price of grain going up to Rs 50 per kg from Rs 25 per kg.

"With the hard work of these farmers, the annual turnover of the society has gone up from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh and with more than 900 families getting employment here, people have stopped migrating to other places."

"Impressed by the bold initiative of these farmers, the administration has linked this to the National Livelihood Mission," he said, adding that these biscuits were now being supplied to Almora and Kausani besides being sold at about 50 Aanganwadi centres in the district.